Introduction to Lua

The Ultimate Guide to Gideros Studio

Overview

Gideros uses the Lua programming language. Lua was created in the early 1990s and is very popular as a scripting system in games.

Ideal for both beginners and professionals, if you are familiar with their BASIC or Python then you will feel at home using Lua.

Basic Concepts

The Language

Standard Libraries

Lua Resources

We suggest you have a good book covering Lua. There are many resources on the net, and here are a few of them:

• Programming in Lua, second edition by Roberto Ierusalimschy (http://www.inf.puc-rio.br/~roberto/pil2/)
• Learn Lua in 15 minutes (http://tylerneylon.com/a/learn-lua/)
• Litt's Lua Laboratory: The 10% you need for 90% of your work (http://www.troubleshooters.com/codecorn/lua/index.htm)
• Official Lua FAQ (http://www.lua.org/faq.html)
• Classic data structures and algorithms in Lua (https://github.com/EvandroLG/computer_science_in_lua)
• Very nice Lua reference manual helper (http://pgl.yoyo.org/luai/i/_)
• Lua cheatsheet (https://devhints.io/lua)
• Lua C API short reference (http://www.ewald-arnold.de/lua/lua-apiref.pdf)
• Lua: Good, bad, and ugly parts (http://notebook.kulchenko.com/programming/lua-good-different-bad-and-ugly-parts)
• Introduction to Lua programming (http://w3.linux-magazine.com/issue/45/Lua_Programming.pdf)
• Lua perfomance optimization tips (https://springrts.com/wiki/Lua_Performance)
• Lua video tutorial series by CODE BLUE (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyQg3m0a5UitP1lHptwWc_4N2ZkRQBfrZ)
• Video tutorial series by KarmaKilledtheCat (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0o3fqwR2CsWg_ockSMN6FActmMOJ70t_)
• Video tutorial series by Brian Burton (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxgtJR7f0RBKGid7F2dfv7qc-xWwSee2O)